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Friday, 22 October 2010

Tomorrow morning I am leaving for Nigeria. I was wondering if I should take my laptop with me or if it was better to leave it at home? In my mind, Nigeria is full of hackers who can steal things effortlessly from your computers just by looking at it! Then I received an email and it changed the way I look at Nigeria and Nigerians.

Yesterday I received a "different" spam message from alicesary2(at)gmail.com. It made me aware about the tough jobs poor email hackers in Nigeria have to do. Sending countless emails to people who don't believe in their crying stories, about being stranded in foreign lands needing emergency money or widows of millionnaires wishing your help in getting at their millions, must be tough and job-satisfaction must be low, apart from pangs of guilty-consciousness for duping poor sods who believe in fairy tales.

OK guys, next time I put your message in the dump-box, I won't curse you, I will smile and think about your tough lives! Here is the message:

Hello Dear,

Since you aren't falling for my African romance scam, let me be up front with you. Because I am actually a Nigerian man, you owe me something. I am entitled to reparations from the rest of the world, including you, due to the misdeeds of my forefathers who sold their family members and neighbors into slavery.

I am also entitled to handouts since my nation is rife with corruption and graft and has no hope of ever creating a decent civilization for itself. Since you have not sufficiently helped us, that is your fault, not ours.

Most of all, you owe me for all of your unfounded prejudice against us.So start paying up now, by Western Union. I will accept $12,000 USD from you over a one year period in monthly installments of $1000 USD.

Otherwise I will emigrate to your country and never cease to be a social problem for you. A word to the wise is sufficient.

Friday, 1 October 2010

This week's Astrophysics journal has the story of a planet going around a red dwarf star, 20 light-years away from the earth.The planet has been given the name "Gliese 581g", and someone with lot of imagination, has converted the final and unimaginative "g" of the name into "Goldilocks".

It seems that Goldilocks can be a planet suitable for life similar to our earth, "the right size and location for life". May be all those scientists can take a break and need not worry about finding proofs of life on Goldilocks, I can already confirm it. There is life and there is God on Goldilocks, I know it.

Let me try to explain my view.

Scientists have already found that all matter is made of sub-atomic particles, that are in constant motion. Between our world as we see it and the sub-atomic world, there is such an immense distance that human imagination is not enough to understand it. In CERN near Geneva in Switzerland, scientists are trying to break down the sub-atomic particles to find out their compositions. I believe that sub-atmoic particles are made of ultra-sub-atomic particles, and distance of proportions between two groups of particles is as big or may be bigger than the distances between our world and that of sub-atomic particles.

In the same way, I believe that we are the sub-atomic particles of the universe, and may be our universe is sub-atomic particle for other bigger universes. For me, life is the constant motion of the sub-atomic particles, that is such that according to quantum physics it can be in more than one place at the same time. This life force joins all of us, humans, animals, plants, mountains, rivers, oceans, space, planets, galaxies into one. This super-consciousness is God.

It is for this reason that I like the ancient human's ideas of gods like mythical creatures, humans and demons and animals all combined like the mythical creatures on the Buddhist temples in Vietnam, like Ganesh in India, because these give an idea of unity of life beyond the apparent differences in our forms.

Scientists say that all our cells change, some die and others are born every minute, every day. Every time we breath, new atomic particles enter our bodies, mix with particles that make our body and some go out with our breath. We are being renewed all the time. Think of a being on Goldilocks, millions of years ago - its atomic particles mixed and travelled in space and have arrived on earth and have entered your breath. Goldilocks is here, inside you, inside us.

Dr Sunil Deepak

Arre Kya Baat Hai

It is an expression in Hindi, an Indian language, and it can take different meanings according to the context. Asked with a questioning tone, it can mean, "What's up?". Spoken with a sense of wonder, it can also mean, "Wow, how wonderful!"

About Sunil: I am a doctor. For about 3 decades I have worked at international level in the areas of leprosy, disability and community health. Between 2014-16, I was in Guwahati (Assam, India) working in a disability programme for a NGO.

Since May 2016, I am living between Schio (Italy) and Gurgaon (NCR, India).